Composer and percussionist Angus MacLise is best known as the original drummer for the Velvet Underground. He was friends and roommates with John Cale (performing alongside him in La Monte Young's Theater of Eternal Music), who invited him to join the group in 1965. In November of that year the band were offered their first paying gig, at which point MacLise quit, claiming that the group had sold out. He was replaced by Maureen Ticker.

MacLise and his wife Hetty were invited to edit what was to become the penultimate issue of Aspen, in 1971. The issue included contributions from many of his previous collaborators, including Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela (who he played with in TTOEM), Gerard Malanga (who he briefly performed with in the VU) and John Cale (both).

Aspen #8 is often referred to as “The Fluxus Issue”, presumably because George Maciunas was responsible for the design. Though, other than Maciunas, the only artists involved with the publication who were active in Fluxus were Jackson MacLow and La Monte Young, who contributed the recordings on the flexi-disc. MacLow’s Young Turtle Assymetries, chance-generated poems for five simultaneous readers, was the A-side, backed with Young’s Drift Study 31 1 69.

The folder also included a poster version of Ed Ruscha’s Thirty-four Parking Lots, a text by Robert Smithson, and scores by Eleanor & David Antin, Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Other featured artists included Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Morris, and Yvonne Rainer.

Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore is a video collage of scenes of young people dancing, singing and partying. It begins with disco in the 1970s, moves to the Northern soul of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and climaxes with the rave scene of the 1990s. Released in 1999, it remains one of the artist's best-known works, alongside Sound System, 2002 (which was presented at Mercer Union in 2004) and Industrial Lights and Magic, for which Leckey was awarded the 2008 Turner Prize.

Thirteen years later the soundtrack is now available as the first (only?) release on the Boomkat in-house label The Death of Rave. It is backed with the soundtrack to GreenScreenRefrigerator, 2010.

The second addenda to the Fluxus Etc catalogue, which was published in conjunction with an exhibition held September 28 - October 30, 1983 at the Baxter Art Gallery. Edited by Hendricks, who also curated the exhibition, the book is designed by Sara Seagull and contains an introduction by Jay Belloli. Includes b&w facsimile reproductions of instruction drawings for Fluxus works by Ay-O, George Brecht, John Cage, Jack Coke's Farmer's Coop, Ken Friedman, Dick Higgins, Milan Knizak, George Maciunas, Larry Miller, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Ben Vautier, Yoshi Wada, and Robert Watts.

Friday, December 28, 2012

A clear plastic sleeve with a printed sticker houses two 7" records (each visually unique) and a signed and fingerprinted certificate. Side A is the sound of black paint being mixed with white. Side B is the sound of white paint being mixed with black. One is in a black sleeve and the other in a white one.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

The second flexidisc soundsheet included in Aspen #7 featured the three-part Yoko Ono track Song For John. It consists of Let's Go On Flying [ 1 min. 10 sec.], Snow is Falling All the Time [1 min 28 sec.] and Mum's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow [2 mins. 13 sec.].

The third section would later be reworked into the song Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Hand in the Snow), which would be released as the b-side to John Lennon's 1969 single Cold Turkey, and would appear on Ono's 1971 album Fly.

A live version appeared on the Live Peace in Toronto LP, which was recorded at the Varsity Stadium in Toronto, on September 13, 1969. Lennon was invited to perform at the Rock n Roll Revival concert and hastily assembled a version of The Plastic Ono Band which consisted of Eric Clapton on guitar, their Hamburg friend Klaus Voorman and Yes drummer Alan White. Lennon played three rock standards, a Beatles song and two recent singles, and then announced "Now Yoko's going to do her thing, all over you". In addition to Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow), Ono also performed the more freeform John John (Let's Hope for Peace). The song was also released as a live version on Some Time in New York City (1972), with the addition of George Harrison and The Who's Keith Moon.

The Aspen version was record by Ono, accompanied by Lennon's acoustic guitar, when she was hospitalized in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London, in November 1968. She was six months pregnant and there were concerns that the stress from their recent drug bust (and the general public hostility) was adversely affecting the health of their unborn child. She remained in hospital for three weeks, with Lennon at her side (first in a hospital bed and, eventually, a sleeping bag on the floor next to her). She suffered a miscarriage on the 21st of November.

Kyoko is Ono's daughter from a previous marriage to Anthony Cox, around the age of five at the time of recording. Following their divorce and a difficult legal battle, Ono was awarded permanent custody of the child. However, Cox had joined a religious group called the Church of the Living Word and vanished with Kyoko. Ono and Lennon hired detectives and relocated to New York in order to find her, but Ono did not see her daughter again for over twenty years.

The Aspen version was eventually included as a bonus track on the CD reissue Lennon and Ono's Wedding Album. The version from the record Fly, can be heard on Youtube, here.

The Aspen version, and the other sections that make up Song For John, can be heard at Ubuweb.com, here.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Mario Amaya was an American art critic and museum director. He was the chief curator of the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1969 to 1972. A year prior, he was in Andy Warhol's office when Valerie Solanas shot Warhol. He was grazed by two bullets and briefly hospitalized.

Amaya, who died in 1986, is best remembered as the founding editor of London’s Art and Artists Magazine, which he began in 1966. In 1970 he edited the 7th issue of Aspen magazine, the British Issue. Designed by John Kosh, the box (which shipped flat) contained works by Peter Blake, Ossie Clarke, Ian Hamilton Finlay, David Hockey, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eduardo Paolozzi, and others. The cover design was by Richard Smith.

Dedicated to Artists’ books, multiples, recordings, postcards, magazines and ephemera, this site will feature reviews of recent titles, features on artists and publishers, random listings of older works, the occasional longer essay or interview, straight-forward pictorials,links to recent news, etc. etc., in an attempt to create an aggregate of information on editioned artworks.

About Me

Dave Dyment is an artist, writer and curator based in Toronto, Canada. He is the co-editor of "One for Me and One to Share: Artists Multiples and Editions" (YYZ Books, 2012). His own work can be viewed at www.dave-dyment.com. He is represented by MKG127.